‘My heart has been shattered,’ mother tells court before daughter’s killer sentenced to nine years

On Dec. 2, 2024, Breanna George called her mother, excited she had found a new place to live and would be moving out of her Furby Street basement apartment.

The 21-year-old woman didn’t get a chance to move — she died that same day after she was stabbed by another tenant she had never met.

“My heart has been shattered into pieces,” her mother Joy Mueller said in a victim impact statement provided to court Monday at a sentencing hearing for George’s killer, Savannah Nashacappo-Badger.

“She wasn’t just my child, she was my anchor, my laughter, my comfort and the one person who understood me in ways no one else ever has,” Mueller said. “My family is not the family we used to be. We don’t get to heal from this.”

Nashacappo-Badger, 24, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to nine years in prison.

According to an agreed statement of facts provided to court, Nashacappo-Badger was heard yelling and running around outside and inside the apartment building before she entered the suite of a neighbour across the hall. Nashacappo-Badger confronted the female tenant and grabbed money and marijuana from her counter before threatening her and leaving.

The woman texted George, a friend, and told her what happened. George and two men went to the woman’s suite.

“George told (the woman) she would help get her money back,” Crown attorney Carla Dewar told provincial court Judge Michael Clark, reading from the agreed statement of facts.

The group of four walked across the hall and banged on Nashacappo-Badger’s door. Inside, Nashacappo-Badger and two men armed themselves with knives before one of them opened the door.

As the door cracked open, one of the men with George shoved a piece of lumber through the gap and attempted to widen the opening. Nashacappo-Badger waved a knife through the opening, stabbing George in the chest, then slammed the door and locked it.

George stumbled to her basement suite and collapsed. Paramedics tried to revive her but she was declared dead a short time later.

Nashacappo-Badger was quickly arrested and admitted to the stabbing.

“She indicated she had been fearful when the people were attempting to get into her suite, was scared for her life and had no time to think about what she was doing,” Dewar said. “She grabbed the first knife she saw and panicked.”

Nashacappo-Badger was originally charged with second-degree murder. Dewar said the Crown agreed to accept a plea to the lesser charge of manslaughter because there was “an element of self-defence” to the killing.

But Nashacappo-Badger’s degree of responsibility for the killing remains high, Dewar said.

“Had she not participated in the robbery of (her neighbour) in the first place, this would not have occurred,” she said. “Breanna George was killed because she was trying to help a friend get back what was taken from her… It is a completely senseless tragedy.”

Nashacappo-Badger received credit for time already served, reducing her remaining sentence to approximately 7 ½ years.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca